


Cities That Shouldn't Have Been

by UnseenAcademical



Category: The Great Cities Series - N. K. Jemisin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnseenAcademical/pseuds/UnseenAcademical
Summary: There are cities that are: Sao Paolo, New York.There are cities that were: Pompeii, Babylon.There are cities that are becoming: Mexico City, Jakarta, ChicagoAnd there are cities that were never meant.These are their stories.
Kudos: 8





	Cities That Shouldn't Have Been

Vancouver was never meant to be a real city.

Don't get me wrong: it's not like someone set out going "let's make this place unlivable." Or that the plan was always to make something that was so hollow. No, it took history and tradition thousands of years in the making. Taking roost in Vancouver, the same way migratory birds find new hopes as the weather sours.

And it's no commentary on the First Nations either. The Coast Salish build huge structures and trading networks. In time, perhaps they would have made a city large enough to be born on its own terms. It isn't lost. Merely hibernating, under a blanket of development and shipping terminuses and the sprawl that hasn't yet engulfed the mountains.

Vancouver was built by greed, the same way a pearl builds around grit (or perhaps more like coral?) Men arrived, stripped the trees and the shiny rocks, and some stayed. The shantytown, Gastown, spread further and further. It was named Vancouver, but it was still Gastown at heart until it was destroyed by fire. Yet the greed remained, and the pearl continued to be shaped by the irritant. It took two weeks for businesses to reopen. The money couldn't be stopped, no matter what it grew around. Beautiful on the outside, with a dirty secret heart; Vancouver.

And that beauty is reflective. There are few other places that can lay claim to being so MANY places. Vancouver is specialized in the act of seeming. You catch its reflection so often, yet so infrequently as itself. Vancouver's character is to be something other, no matter who to or where it is.

It's isolating, sure. You think the loneliness of the city is a drawback? It is what the city wants. At arm's length is where the best business happens. And this city is the architect of business. Far more so than Toronto, which prides itself on being authentic while Vancouver pulls in money that would otherwise be lost. International money, crime money, drug money, investment money, film money. Everyone sees profit in Vancouver. It seems to be just a step away from an explosion of wealth.

Seeming. You spot it in the rainbow crosswalks next to the residential school survivors. The glamorous high rise condos overlooking the tent encampments. Look at it from afar, and Vancouver gleams.

Vancouver was never meant to be a real city. An outpost, a village, a conduit. Never a place itself. Always a place of transition. Always kicking someone out to make room for the next breath of fresh air, fresh money, fresh seeming that will keep it going.

It breathes fitfully. It was never meant to be a real city.

But like all great things, what it was meant to be was never going to hold it.


End file.
